Long ago when I was young enough to think the arc of history bends towards justice I thought suede shoes were stylish—not the Chet Atkins variety, but the “Hush Puppy” kind, the beige ones. I was 13 and those were some good shoes. I say so without nostalgia. I’m not Googling 1968 Hush Puppies. The shoes of nostalgia will fuck you up.
Of the Hush Puppies I recall after you wore them for a day or two they tended to stink. I remember my father saying: “Your shoes smell like dead rats.” “How do you know what dead rats smell like?” I asked him. “I was in WWII,” he said.
I tried washing the shoes with dish soap and a rag. This ruined the suede and made them smell like the beauty parlor where my mother went for her “permanents” which were sinister since she was a drug addict and lacquered hair meant there’d be a burning sofa in the near future.
Yep. The Shoes of Nostalgia will disintegrate your meditative salon. Meanwhile I “did” just Google the phrase “”shoes of nostalgia”and found: “nostalgia big in sneaker world” or something like that.
BTW I could never get my father to talk about the war. He fought in the Pacific. There were lots of rats.
Planet of the Blind 